wrote:
Thought this was an opportunity to start what might be an interesting
thread regarding soaring instruction. Using your aside as a
springboard, I'll ask the group: "Is soaring instruction adequate to
produce safe, knowledgable soaring pilots."

As a FAA Designated Pilot Examiner, I think I have some insight to this
question. The short answer is yes, and no. It all depends upon the
standards utilized by the individual.

The regulatory standards are detailed in the US Federal Air Regulations
and relevant Practical Test Standards (PTS). These are the bare
minimum to be demonstrated to me on a flight test in order to gain
certification. As I hand the new temporary certificate over, I remind
the pilot that aviation safety is now in his hands. It is trite, but
true that each of us is as good as we want to be. In order to raise
the bar, we have to willingly suffer critique and to be self critical
enough to improve our own knowledge.

Some instructor problems will always be with us. Any bad information
given and then accepted as fully true can live for generations of
pilots. For example, last week-end a vacationing pilot came to our
field for some training and confessed to me his unease about "the low
energy landing you all use here." As this was during our introduction
and pre flight briefing, I asked him to more fully explain his
statement. At his home field he felt that were he to land over than by
flying onto the ground, he would be chased off and never released from
dual.

This is a description of how the concept of maintaining energy until
landing is assured can become distorted by a poor description from a
flight instructor. Careful questioning of your own and your student's
assumptions based upon your instruction should catch this-but due to
short shifting of ground instruction frequently gets missed. No one
whether club or commercial is immune. At Estrella, I have inherited
students that have been told they are close to solo but have yet to
crack a text. What did that instructor do to allow this?

What is needed is an instructor that will not accept the minimums. Any
instructor should be in the glider for the student-not for the flight
time. I had a conversation with a chief CFI of a large club that
thought my own glider time to number of flights was too low. How could
I have been teaching soaring and not stayed up longer? My response was
that the student needed to learn to soar, not me. In order to do that,
mistakes had to be made and corrected. It is all too easy to fly the
glider for the student. I was guilty of that at one time, but when my
own confidence grew, I found that I could fly just as well orally.

Any instructor in any endeavor sets the example and should not be
satisfied with the minimum performance standard, but always a little
bit more. You don't have to look into a mirror to see yourself, just
at the pilots that you have trained.

Terry Claussen
DPE Estrella